Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Project Creator (Quick) Tip: Hyperlinks

99.9% of the internet uses hyperlinks. They let you create a link like this instead of like this: http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/11084. The obvious benefit is that with the hyperlink, someone with even the slightest curiosity can go to your link with a click of the mouse and without the hyperlink they have to copy and paste the url into a browser.

This is most commonly found as an issue in projects that have video content. I often see phrases like:

Check out a video of my project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjE7SUuamD4

Which do you think is going to get the most click troughs? If that video or link is going to get you supporters you have to make it easy for the audience.

How do you create Hyperlinks?

Hyperlinks are incredibly simple to write, just follow this example:

<a href="link">display text</a>

Whatever you type in the quotes for href="" will be link that the hyperlink will go to.

Whatever you put in between > and </a> will be the text that shows up.

So writing <a href="http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/11084">Corellian Defender</a> in your project would create the hyperlink Corellian Defender which will go to http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/11084 when clicked.

Note that you cannot type a hyperlink (or any html) into a comment on a project. This is to protect Cuusoo users from scripting attacks (which is a much larger topic and one unrelated to Cuuso). So I cannot explain to people how to use hyperlinks in their projects....so I am doing it here.

Use Hyperlinks!

Purdue Pete Effect

Although it is nearly impossible to determine all the factors that might cause a fluctuation in projects support, it is clear that a large swath of the "best" projects received a boost in support last week.

The best projects tend to be stable as a group. The Cuusoo regulars who are going to support the projects already have, as they have high visibility. Sure, a project or two tends to encounter a vein of new supporters and gets a jolt but that would be one or two projects, not a "swath."

One effect could have been the review Cuusoo did of the top six projects but this article is on the Cuusoo page and thus likely only to reach Cuusoo regulars.

One also cannot ignore the impact that the staff pick of the week has on project support but that is rather limited in scope, last week was aircrafts and this week its projects based on games.

That leaves very few options but to assume that Purdue Pete is the influencing factor.

Many were upset by the "how little" the support of Pete fans spilled over to other projects but it is clear from this report that Purdue Pete did bring in support for other projects.

Approaching 1k Milestone

No projects crossed the 1k milestone this week but Transforming video game accessories has surpassed the Rhino.

Don't like how slow a project is going?

Days to 10K (& 1k)

I am testing out a new feature, the 1k report to go with the 10k...next week I will break them up into two reports (probably) but for now, here it is, integrated with the 10k. Expect more analysis changes in the next few weeks.

Not on the List?
First, I tend to cut off projects after a certain day count, usually
10k. Additionally, I only monitor projects that have at least 200.
Projects less than that are a little too volatile for proper
assessment. Finally, I track several weeks worth of data to get these
numbers, so you might not show up until your project has been post 200
for a few weeks.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Pick of the Week

This is a very impressive recreation of a unique aircraft. There is also a great "water" (brick) drop feature as this aircraft is used in firefighting. The use of skies for the propellers is well implemented Zorko.huljic offers this design in two scale which is quite helpful for the supporter.

The only issue I can see is that the design uses outdated hinge elements (that I really wish were still avialable). Nothing Lego designers can't handle though.

Honorable Mentions

Week of Cuusoo

I don't usually go for Modulars (I got to stop saying that) but this one is just so lovely with the Autumn color scheme. One of the unusual things about Cuusoo is that though a certain level of support can be garnered by current events the sets themselves can take ages to come about...fortunately every year has an Autumn.

There is an elevator mechanic: video here. The mechanic is even more impressive when you realize that the floors come apart.

This is an impressive looking building, front and back and the dome is well implemented. I would be much more forgiving to it if it was not specifically the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

To me though it fails to capture the grandeur of the Museum. I see this being half way in between two states and thus failing to achieve greatness in either. The full scale of the Museum could only be captures in "architecture" scale (or a mind boggling modular). The Modular displayed would imply that the internals would be worthy of the Museum but those are mostly taken up by empty floor space and an elevator.

This is certainly an interesting concept. Reekardoo has done an great job with the chairs but chairs are always a problem for Lego. They always demonstrate that figures lack knees. So, this chairs look enormous. I mean, they look great, but the chair on the left is suppose to have Anakin or Mace Windu. If you were to picture the fig as person you can see they would have to climb into that chair. Its more of a lounge at that state.

Again, to be clear, I think the designs are excellent. If anything I am talking to my frustration for designing aesthetically pleasing or logically consistent designs around the minifig leg design.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

The Rise of Purdue Pete

Purdue Pete is the icon of (you guessed it) Purdue University. Yesterday it launched upward from the hundreds to the thousands and will no doubt reach 10k sometime today, if not before this even gets published.

This was done though a well organized effort on the behalf of Purdue fans (faculty, staff, students, alumni, etc.). They got the word out and organized a "voting day" with a set goal of 10,000 votes in 36 hours.

This was assisted by having a table set up with three iPads set to Cuusoo. Students could come up, register, and support with great ease.

All in all it looks like a well orchestrated event. I speculated that some group would eventually do this kind of networked voting process to promote a project. I had however assumed that it would be a company at a convention though rather than a University.

There was one identified case of ballot stuffing. This was less than 100 supports and negligible to valid support levels at the time and of course, relative to the support pouring in. None the less, Cuusoo takes fake votes very seriously and has addressed the issue.

Some Cuusoo users are a bit offended by what Purdue has done but it is well within the rules. Cuusoo has a very clear policy on this. As long as it is one person per vote, that is all that matters.

There were others who were very upset that the project's unique tags isolated it from other projects on Cuusoo. Tags are the metadata that Cuusoo uses to suggest related projects that Cuusoo users might also like. With the tags being unique like "boiler up" they had no connections with other project and therefore people coming to Cuusoo to vote for Pete, were not shown other projects that they might like to support.
I asked the project creator, Dr. San Miguel, about their unique tags. They confirmed that this was not intentional and upon being informed expanded their tags to be more inclusive of the larger Cuusoo community.

Of course there are also the detractors who still think that this is some kind of "invasion" of Cuusoo by people who "don't care about Lego." To them I have this to say:

Cuusoo is not an election or a competition. Excluding very similar projects (i.e. the two Portals projects), the success of any one project does not impinge on the success of another. If one more person know about Cuusoo because of the Purdue Pete project, it is a net gain for Cuusoo. If one person supporting Purdue Pete supports one other project, that is a support that would not have occurred otherwise. This is a win for Cuusoo as a whole, not just for Purdue Pete.

Pete and the Review Phase
Only a few projects have made it to this phase so any guesses as to the eventual outcome is a bit of a gambit. Each new project reaching 10k does seems to bring a new perspective on what projects are viable for Cuusoo to produce.

This project is very unique relative to all the other projects in that it has a very specific, identifiable, localized audience. There is no question of inappropriateness of subject matter, and there should be no difficulty for Lego designers to recreate a viable Pete using Lego standards. Purdue does not seem to be against the idea of working with Lego so their is likely to not be a dispute over licensing. Most of the hurdles that many Cuusoo projects face have already then been addressed. This leaves of course Brand Fit and Business case. This is wholly up to Lego to decide with very little to go on for speculation. TLG is going to have to decide on whether or not there is a legitimate market for the set and if they want to go down the path of producing corporate/institutional icons. I for one am eager to find out, but it will likely be a long time before we hear back on the matter.

Open Letter to Purdue Fans
If you want to prove that you got
what it take to do this twice, well, here is a Boilermaker Special VII. Dr. San Miguel, you are free to use it if you so choose.

What follows is the 10k report that I write every week. This is an analysis of the top projects on Cuusoo and how quickly they are getting to the 10k mark. As you can see, most will take years to do so, and these are the most supported projects on Cuusoo. Please take a moment of your time to take a look at them and spread some support around.

Not convinced you will find something on interest? How about an example of a set that does Purdue proud. Neil Armstrong is an alumnus of Purdue, why not help immortalize his famous mission in Lego by supporting the Apollo 11 Lunar Mission

Not on the List?
First, I tend to cut off projects after a certain day count, usually
10k. Additionally, I only monitor projects that have at least 200.
Projects less than that are a little too volatile for proper
assessment. Finally, I track several weeks worth of data to get these
numbers, so you might not show up until your project has been post 200
for a few weeks.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Pick of the Week

Stunning quadruped mecha! Who does not love those! This demonstrates some fantastic technique. Especially those missile launchers. On top of all that, and excellent presentation. The project also includes a unique bipedal mecha to go with it.

Week of Cuusoo

This is a fine representation of the Purdue mascot and really shows school spirit. I considered doing a few builds of my own related to my Alma mater in the early days of Cuusoo. It is clear now though that Cuusoo is still very much interested in releasing products with a very large fan base. For this reason I don't really see this bearing any fruit even if it were to get the requisite votes.

It is my personal opinion that a project like this will only succeed to the product stage if it integrates multiple mascots.

This is a very well though out design, but I can't think Lego would go for it. I can't believe that there was not a push for this part as soon as Iron Man was on the table. The wrist element is a part that Lego is a bit finicky about. To prolong the lifespan of their minifigs they do not promote the removal of Lego hands...likely the primary reason it is a "verboten" build technique.

So, great design. I would love to have them...but I just can't see Lego producing these.